By Ruth A. Ringelstetter
With the weather warmer than our averages for the first time since October, it seems fitting to look forward to spring. We don’t have any butterflies out and about yet, but today, March 14, is Learn about Butterflies Day.
I guess I shouldn’t be so quick to say there are no butterflies out yet, since the Eastern Comma overwinters here, and has been seen in Wisconsin as early as March 9 on sunny days. You could even see them when there is still snow on the ground. And one was seen earlier than that a few years ago when our youngest sister Peggy brought some wood into her house to burn in the fireplace. The warmth of the house woke the butterfly, and for the next several weeks, she had a Comma flying about her house.
You will see butterflies on most sunny days and if you want to photograph them, it is usually easier to do in the morning hours. Later in the day, they flit and fly a lot more, and it is usually hard to capture them in photos unless they find a particularly good wildflower or garden flower to visit.
Speaking of flowers, if you would like to encourage butterflies to visit your garden, you can plant some flowers specifically for them. Native butterfly weed, a bright orange flower is a good attractor as well as the cultivated butterfly bush. If you are interested in planting a butterfly attracting garden, an Internet search will easily bring you a list of plants and the butterflies attracted to them for your region. Rather than chase the butterflies, you can bring them to you.
Joann and I have had some interesting experiences with butterflies. She had her close-up butterfly encounter photographing on the backroads one day in late September. We’ve also had an ongoing interaction with butterflies on our spring vacations beginning with our first vacation to Kentucky in 2006.
On that vacation, we noticed that at every stop, beginning in Illinois, and every stop thereafter, we were visited by an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly. At first we thought it was a coincidence, but through Indiana, into Kentucky, and even into Tennessee, at every stop, we would notice one of those yellow butterflies, often before we even stopped the car.
We didn’t think too much of it that year, but every year since, we’ve had the same experience. We’ve come to expect it and to look around at every stop.
On a trip to the Ozarks in 2008, we stopped to photograph an old springhouse at a trailhead in the Buffalo National River Park, and when we got out of the car, we noticed several groups of butterflies feeding on a wet area of the parking lot.
Butterflies are also a good way to get your kids interested in nature. For a birthday one year, we gave one of our nephews a butterfly raising kit. The kit came with the netted enclosure and a certificate to send away for the caterpillars and food. When they arrived, he and his family just followed the instructions and waited for butterflies to appear. They had Red Admiral butterflies, and they got to observe their whole life cycle. Once they were ready to fly, they released them outside.
In Madison, Wisconsin, you can visit Olbrich Botanical Gardens over the summer and see their Blooming Butterflies exhibit in the Bolz Conservatory. The exhibit includes local butterfly species as well as tropical butterflies. There are other butterfly exhibits around the country, so search for one near you.
You can also chase butterflies with a butterfly net as Joann did with one of our nephews one summer. Sometimes people capture the butterflies for a collection, but they were just trying to get a close-up look.
Finding and identifying butterflies is a good way to interest children in nature. Young children have a natural interest, so it’s easy to take them outside and look for butterflies on a hike or around your yard. You can identify the butterflies you find using a butterfly field guide or an online guide at one of the nature sites, such as enature.com.
As I close this post, we are busy planning for this year’s spring vacation, and we are anticipating visits from butterflies again.
Happy Learn about Butterflies Day and Happy Shunpiking!
Ruth
Shunpiking To Heaven Backroads Blog
Showing posts with label butterflies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label butterflies. Show all posts
Saturday, March 14, 2015
Sunday, April 1, 2012
If It Weren’t for Bad Luck
By Ruth A. Ringelstetter
Our trip to the Ozarks in the spring of 2008 was one for the record books, especially one particular day driving through the mountains.
We always have to plan stops for gas carefully when we’re in rural country, and that day we didn’t. The Ozarks have a lot of very rural country and towns that looked big enough on the map to host at least one gas station often did not. As we bumped along the remote mountain roads that day, the next town on the map was the town of Oark and we were counting on a gas station there.
The car had long ago dinged its warning that the gas was almost gone, and we were holding our breath and coasting when we could. As you can probably guess, we didn’t make it. As the car sputtered to a stop, we wondered what to do. We were so far out in the country there was no cell phone coverage. We have AAA, but without a way to call, what chance is there that they will deliver gas? After sitting for a few minutes, Joann decided that I should stay with the car and she would hike to town and hopefully buy a gas can and some gas.
I watched as she walked down the road, and as she got father away, I continued to watch with my binoculars. When she was just about to turn a corner and be out of sight, an old pickup truck went past. As they passed, I looked inside and all I could think of was “hatchet murderers.” As they neared Joann, I saw them pull over, and then I watched in my binoculars as they slid over and she climbed in.
Now what? I was worried, but luckily the pickup truck soon returned with Joann and some gas. The guys were friendly, and they had a gas can with them, which is a good choice for anyone who drives in the mountains. Joann didn’t have to buy a gas can and we didn’t have to find a way to carry one in our always overloaded car. Thankfully, we now had enough gas to make it to Oark.
The “town” of Oark is an old general store. No houses, no other buildings, just an old general store and two gas pumps, which were so dated that they couldn’t support the current prices. A big sign on the pumps warned that you owed twice what was displayed on the pump. Obviously you couldn’t “pay at the pump” so, after filling the tank as full as we could get it, we went inside to check out the store and to pay for our gas.
We chatted with the two women working at the store, and when they asked where we were headed, I told them we were going to visit an old mill. The older of the two told us that she doesn’t drive the dirt roads and she wouldn’t suggest it to anyone. She only took the “blacktop” road to wherever she was going. There was no blacktop road that would take us to the mill I was trying to get to, so we debated if we should take their suggestion and drive the better of the dirt roads, or chance it and take the road we had originally planned to take.
We decided that, since they both suggested we not take the road I was planning, we wouldn’t chance it, and turned onto the dirt road that they said was better. Driving down the road, we crossed over a small river. As we always do when crossing a bridge, we both glanced down the river. Hmmm, there might be photo opportunities here.
Joann pulled over and soon there were butterflies all around the low water bridge. Joann got out her equipment and started to photograph. I watched her and the butterflies for some time, and then, seeing that we were going to be there for a while, I headed back to the car to check the butterfly book. I also needed to figure out where this unplanned road would take us and what we might see along the way.
Occasionally I glanced in the mirror to see Joann moving around, still photographing butterflies. And then I looked up and she was gone.
NOW WHAT? I got out of the car and went back to the bridge. The butterflies were gone, and there was no sign of Joann or her camera. I called her name – no answer. I looked both ways down the river and didn’t see her. I walked up and down the road looking for a trail into the woods and didn’t see anything. Where was she? Then I spotted her camera lying at the edge of the road inches from the water. I picked it up and continued to look around. I couldn’t see any sign of her.
There was no cell phone coverage since we were now well off the blacktop road and in even more rural country. We hadn’t seen a car the whole time we were on this road. I wondered what to do. Should I leave and go back to the general store for help? I got in the car and checked the map. I could follow the road along the river and see if I could find her.
I opened the windows on the driver’s side of the car and started slowly driving along the river, calling as I drove. About half a mile down the road, there she was, clinging to a small tree on the side of the river. She looked like a drowned rat, but she was laughing and seemed unhurt.
I was relieved and I couldn’t wait to hear what had happened. She told me that she had followed a beautiful Spicebush Swallowtail butterfly down along the river hoping it would land. When it landed on a rock in the river, she thought that would make a really cool picture. So she stepped on one rock and leaned over the rock with the butterfly on it. But the rock was slippery and she fell into the river. Fortunately, her camera landed on the bank. Unfortunately, though, the river was moving swiftly and she was carried down the river until she could get herself to the bank.
After I gave her the “what for,” we got a garbage bag out of the back of the car so she could sit on it, and we headed back to the general store so she could change into dry clothes. And that’s how our whole day went. As they used to sing on the old Hee Haw show “If it weren’t for bad luck, we’d have no luck at all!”
Speaking of days, did you remember what today is?
April Fools! Most of this story is sheer poppycock.
We did visit the “town” of Oark and the pumps really are old enough that they can’t support recent gas prices, but we didn’t really run out of gas. We have definitely gotten a little too close for comfort several times in different states, but not that day.
And Joann did photograph butterflies that day, but she hasn’t floated downstream… not yet anyway. However, I’m always telling her, “If you fall in, I’m not coming in after you.”
Happy April Fools’ Day and Happy Shunpiking!
Ruth
Our trip to the Ozarks in the spring of 2008 was one for the record books, especially one particular day driving through the mountains.
We always have to plan stops for gas carefully when we’re in rural country, and that day we didn’t. The Ozarks have a lot of very rural country and towns that looked big enough on the map to host at least one gas station often did not. As we bumped along the remote mountain roads that day, the next town on the map was the town of Oark and we were counting on a gas station there.
The car had long ago dinged its warning that the gas was almost gone, and we were holding our breath and coasting when we could. As you can probably guess, we didn’t make it. As the car sputtered to a stop, we wondered what to do. We were so far out in the country there was no cell phone coverage. We have AAA, but without a way to call, what chance is there that they will deliver gas? After sitting for a few minutes, Joann decided that I should stay with the car and she would hike to town and hopefully buy a gas can and some gas.
I watched as she walked down the road, and as she got father away, I continued to watch with my binoculars. When she was just about to turn a corner and be out of sight, an old pickup truck went past. As they passed, I looked inside and all I could think of was “hatchet murderers.” As they neared Joann, I saw them pull over, and then I watched in my binoculars as they slid over and she climbed in.
Now what? I was worried, but luckily the pickup truck soon returned with Joann and some gas. The guys were friendly, and they had a gas can with them, which is a good choice for anyone who drives in the mountains. Joann didn’t have to buy a gas can and we didn’t have to find a way to carry one in our always overloaded car. Thankfully, we now had enough gas to make it to Oark.
The “town” of Oark is an old general store. No houses, no other buildings, just an old general store and two gas pumps, which were so dated that they couldn’t support the current prices. A big sign on the pumps warned that you owed twice what was displayed on the pump. Obviously you couldn’t “pay at the pump” so, after filling the tank as full as we could get it, we went inside to check out the store and to pay for our gas.
We chatted with the two women working at the store, and when they asked where we were headed, I told them we were going to visit an old mill. The older of the two told us that she doesn’t drive the dirt roads and she wouldn’t suggest it to anyone. She only took the “blacktop” road to wherever she was going. There was no blacktop road that would take us to the mill I was trying to get to, so we debated if we should take their suggestion and drive the better of the dirt roads, or chance it and take the road we had originally planned to take.
We decided that, since they both suggested we not take the road I was planning, we wouldn’t chance it, and turned onto the dirt road that they said was better. Driving down the road, we crossed over a small river. As we always do when crossing a bridge, we both glanced down the river. Hmmm, there might be photo opportunities here.
Joann pulled over and soon there were butterflies all around the low water bridge. Joann got out her equipment and started to photograph. I watched her and the butterflies for some time, and then, seeing that we were going to be there for a while, I headed back to the car to check the butterfly book. I also needed to figure out where this unplanned road would take us and what we might see along the way.
Occasionally I glanced in the mirror to see Joann moving around, still photographing butterflies. And then I looked up and she was gone.
NOW WHAT? I got out of the car and went back to the bridge. The butterflies were gone, and there was no sign of Joann or her camera. I called her name – no answer. I looked both ways down the river and didn’t see her. I walked up and down the road looking for a trail into the woods and didn’t see anything. Where was she? Then I spotted her camera lying at the edge of the road inches from the water. I picked it up and continued to look around. I couldn’t see any sign of her.
There was no cell phone coverage since we were now well off the blacktop road and in even more rural country. We hadn’t seen a car the whole time we were on this road. I wondered what to do. Should I leave and go back to the general store for help? I got in the car and checked the map. I could follow the road along the river and see if I could find her.
I opened the windows on the driver’s side of the car and started slowly driving along the river, calling as I drove. About half a mile down the road, there she was, clinging to a small tree on the side of the river. She looked like a drowned rat, but she was laughing and seemed unhurt.
I was relieved and I couldn’t wait to hear what had happened. She told me that she had followed a beautiful Spicebush Swallowtail butterfly down along the river hoping it would land. When it landed on a rock in the river, she thought that would make a really cool picture. So she stepped on one rock and leaned over the rock with the butterfly on it. But the rock was slippery and she fell into the river. Fortunately, her camera landed on the bank. Unfortunately, though, the river was moving swiftly and she was carried down the river until she could get herself to the bank.
After I gave her the “what for,” we got a garbage bag out of the back of the car so she could sit on it, and we headed back to the general store so she could change into dry clothes. And that’s how our whole day went. As they used to sing on the old Hee Haw show “If it weren’t for bad luck, we’d have no luck at all!”
Speaking of days, did you remember what today is?
April Fools! Most of this story is sheer poppycock.
We did visit the “town” of Oark and the pumps really are old enough that they can’t support recent gas prices, but we didn’t really run out of gas. We have definitely gotten a little too close for comfort several times in different states, but not that day.
And Joann did photograph butterflies that day, but she hasn’t floated downstream… not yet anyway. However, I’m always telling her, “If you fall in, I’m not coming in after you.”
Happy April Fools’ Day and Happy Shunpiking!
Ruth
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Mystical Butterfly Encounter
By Joann M. Ringelstetter
In 2008, Ruth and I began our fall photographing on September 28 in Vernon County, Wisconsin. Around lunch time, we headed down a quiet backroad that we love to travel. There is an old house on one side of the road and an old garage on the other.
On the side of the garage is a large sumac bush that turns blazing orange in the fall. It was a bit too early for the blazing sumac, but we were rewarded with some brightly colored Raggedy Ann Zinnias instead. We pulled to the side of the road and, as I was grabbing my camera and tripod, I suggested to Ruth that she locate a park where we could have our picnic lunch. Then I headed over to the flowers for what I thought would be some fairly quick shots.
After capturing several images of the zinnias, I realized that a Giant Swallowtail Butterfly was sitting on one of the flowers in the back. So I ran back to the car to get a different lens. By the time I returned, the butterfly had flown away. I was just about to head back to the car when I realized that it was circling around and coming back. For the next hour and a half, I stood there in awe as this butterfly did its work of drinking nectar from the brightly-colored flowers for a few seconds and then taking flight, very slowly making a huge circle, and returning to the flowers for more nectar.
What was so amazing to me was that the butterfly was totally engrossed in drinking the sweet nectar and didn’t seem to be bothered by my presence. I was many times only an inch away, looking into its face as it worked. We’ve explained on the “About Shunpiking” page that when we’re on a backroad and not one single car goes by for an hour, that’s our version of heaven. Well, that’s what this road was like – quiet and peaceful, with only the sounds of nature in our ears. And, call me crazy, but at one point, I swear I heard this butterfly slurping the nectar from the flower. I told myself that it was my imagination, but then I moved ever so close and I heard it again – a definite slurping sound. It was both mystical and amazing.
Thank heavens Ruth is a very patient person because we were both very hungry by the time we left (and in desperate need of a restroom, I might add). And, although this butterfly was tattered and torn (a rather appropriate condition considering the Raggedy Ann Zinnias it was visiting), I never even noticed this until later when I was processing the images on the computer. To me, it was one of the most beautiful butterflies I've ever encountered and one of the most mystical experiences I've ever had.
Happy Shunpiking!
Joann
In 2008, Ruth and I began our fall photographing on September 28 in Vernon County, Wisconsin. Around lunch time, we headed down a quiet backroad that we love to travel. There is an old house on one side of the road and an old garage on the other.
On the side of the garage is a large sumac bush that turns blazing orange in the fall. It was a bit too early for the blazing sumac, but we were rewarded with some brightly colored Raggedy Ann Zinnias instead. We pulled to the side of the road and, as I was grabbing my camera and tripod, I suggested to Ruth that she locate a park where we could have our picnic lunch. Then I headed over to the flowers for what I thought would be some fairly quick shots.
After capturing several images of the zinnias, I realized that a Giant Swallowtail Butterfly was sitting on one of the flowers in the back. So I ran back to the car to get a different lens. By the time I returned, the butterfly had flown away. I was just about to head back to the car when I realized that it was circling around and coming back. For the next hour and a half, I stood there in awe as this butterfly did its work of drinking nectar from the brightly-colored flowers for a few seconds and then taking flight, very slowly making a huge circle, and returning to the flowers for more nectar.
What was so amazing to me was that the butterfly was totally engrossed in drinking the sweet nectar and didn’t seem to be bothered by my presence. I was many times only an inch away, looking into its face as it worked. We’ve explained on the “About Shunpiking” page that when we’re on a backroad and not one single car goes by for an hour, that’s our version of heaven. Well, that’s what this road was like – quiet and peaceful, with only the sounds of nature in our ears. And, call me crazy, but at one point, I swear I heard this butterfly slurping the nectar from the flower. I told myself that it was my imagination, but then I moved ever so close and I heard it again – a definite slurping sound. It was both mystical and amazing.
Thank heavens Ruth is a very patient person because we were both very hungry by the time we left (and in desperate need of a restroom, I might add). And, although this butterfly was tattered and torn (a rather appropriate condition considering the Raggedy Ann Zinnias it was visiting), I never even noticed this until later when I was processing the images on the computer. To me, it was one of the most beautiful butterflies I've ever encountered and one of the most mystical experiences I've ever had.
Happy Shunpiking!
Joann
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